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PURPOSE: The diagnosis-related group (DRG) system has been adapted to reduce overall medical costs by grouping and classifying relatively homogenous patients based on similar resource consumption patterns in the treatment. However, despite its wide range of disease manifestation from early inflammation to severe peritonitis, acute appendicitis is included in the DRG system. Responding to a need to assess the DRG system for patients diagnosed with appendicitis, this study evaluates the efficacy of the current DRG system applied to a broad spectrum of the patients with appendicitis undergoing laparoscopic appendectomy. METHODS: A retrospective review was conducted of the patients who underwent laparoscopic appendectomy. Based on the DRG codes' classification, the patients were analyzed for the amount of DRG reimbursement and the total in-patient cost in relation to the time sequence of the disease onset. Statistical analysis was performed to find factors correlated with the DRG reimbursement and total in-patient cost. RESULTS: Findings indicate that, as the symptom duration becomes prolonged, the CRP level and the use of peritoneal drainage increased. Patients with a symptom duration greater than 24 hours required approximately 5 days of hospital stay, 0.5 day longer in the length of hospital stay than that of patients with less than 12 hours of the onset time. As expected, the amount of DRG reimbursement and the total in-patient cost accumulated as the symptom duration increased. CONCLUSION: The current DRG reimbursement system for the patients undergoing laparoscopic appendectomy recompenses a broad spectrum of patients diagnosed with appendicitis effectively.
Appendectomy* ; Appendicitis ; Classification ; Diagnosis-Related Groups* ; Drainage ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Korea ; Laparoscopy ; Length of Stay ; Peritonitis ; Retrospective Studies ; Severity of Illness Index

Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease that involves the upper and lower gastrointestinal tracts, including the oral cavity. For the conventional treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases, steroids are usually used as induction therapy, and azathioprine is used as maintenance therapy. Steroids are associated with various side effects. Under rare circumstances, they can even cause psychotic symptoms, and reports on steroid-induced psychosis in the pediatric population are few. Here, we report the first case of steroid-induced psychosis in a 16-year-old female with Crohn’s disease administered with steroids as induction therapy in South Korea. She showed psychotic symptoms, including auditory hallucination, loosening of association, and idea of reference, after 2 weeks of administering prednisolone 60 mg/day. One week after steroid discontinuation, the patient gradually recovered and was treated with quetiapine. Therefore, pediatricians should be aware of serious psychiatric adverse effects when administering corticosteroids for various indications.

Purpose: We report the clinical outcomes of Korean patients who were diagnosed with orbital malignancies and underwent orbital exenteration. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the tumor origins, histopathological diagnoses, local/regional recurrences, distant metastases, surgical margin clearances, overall and event-free survivals, and adjuvant chemotherapy or radiation therapy statuses of 14 patients who underwent orbital exenteration in our center from February 2009 to March 2020. Results: We enrolled seven men and seven women of mean age at the time of exenteration of 68 years (range, 37 to 80 years). The mean follow-up period was 44.6 months (range, 10 to 133 months). Most tumors had arisen in the eyelid (seven cases, 50.0%). The most common pathological diagnosis was malignant melanoma (five cases, 35.7%). We observed no local or regional recurrence after exenteration, but distant metastases developed in seven cases, of which four were malignant melanomas (80% of all melanomas). Positive surgical margins were observed in six cases (42.9%). The distant metastasis rate was 42.9%; the overall survival rate was 60%. The 1-year overall survival rate was 100%, the 2-year survival rate was 81.8%, and the 5-year survival rate was 56.1%. The 1-year event-free survival (EFS) rate was 100%, the 2-year EFS rate was 72.7%, and the 5-year EFS rate was 49.9%. Nine patients received adjuvant radiation or chemotherapy and six patients received combined chemoradiation. Conclusions Patients underwent orbital exenteration to treat orbital malignancies and received postoperative chemotherapy and/or radiation exhibited differences in clinical outcomes and survival rates depending on the tumor type.

There is little information on dietary vitamin K intake and nutritional status of daily requirements of vitamin K in Korea. The objective of this study was to investigate the vitamin K intake and major food sources of Vitamin K in Koreans. The survey data from the 2010-2011 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 7,792 subjects (aged 19-64 years) were examined. Total vitamin K intake was calculated from 24-hour dietary recall using a vitamin K food database, Computer Aided Nutritional analysis Program and the United States Department of Agriculture database. The geometric mean of vitamin K was estimated as 322.40 +/- 6.33 ug/day for men and 271.20 +/- 4.92 ug/day for women. Daily vitamin K intake increased significantly with age (p for trend < 0.001). The main food source of vitamin K was vegetables (72.84%), including cabbage kimchi (19.26%), spinach (17.38%), sesame leaves (7.11%), radish leaves (6.65%), spring onions (6.28%), and laver (4.82%), followed by seaweed, seasonings, and fat and oils. We observed that the vitamin K intake of Koreans was relatively higher than that reported by other studies in Western countries and differed depending on age.
Brassica ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Nutrition Surveys* ; Nutritional Status ; Oils ; Onions ; Raphanus ; Seasons ; Seaweed ; Sesamum ; Spinacia oleracea ; United States Department of Agriculture ; Vegetables ; Vitamin K 1 ; Vitamin K* ; Vitamins*

PURPOSE: Deteriorated nutritional status is common during a hospital stay for esophagectomy in patients with esophageal cancer. Malnutrition in those patients is often marked compared with other gastrointestinal cancer. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the appropriateness of commercial peripheral parenteral nutrition (CPPN) use in patients who underwent Ivor-Lewis esophagectomy (I-L op). METHODS: Patients who were provided with CPPN after I-L op were enrolled in this study from January to May 2015. Body weight, height, nutritional status, length of hospital stay, duration of CPPN therapy, and parenteral nutrition (PN) induced complications were assessed, respectively, using electronic medical records. RESULTS: Thirty-nine patients were enrolled. Average age was 65.9 years and 36 patients were male. All patients were provided with the same CPPN. The duration of fasting and CPPN use was 5.8+/-1.4 days and 7.5+/-1.8 days, respectively. Calorie supported by CPPN was 22.6+/-3.5 kcal/kg/day and only 20.5% of patients (n=8) reached the daily target calories. Most frequent PN induced complication was phlebitis which occurred in 8 patients (20.5%). Calcium, magnesium, and transthyretin levels in serum were not monitored during the PN support period. CONCLUSION: The indications for CPPN were appropriate because the fasting duration in patients with I-L op was 5 to 10 days. Although a large portion of patients could not be supplied daily target calories, their nutrition status was not significantly changed on admission and at discharge. We did not find it necessary to individualize PN support for a short period after an I-L op in patients with esophageal cancer. Further study will be needed to determine why the incidence of phlebitis was dominant.
Body Weight ; Calcium ; Electronic Health Records ; Esophageal Neoplasms* ; Esophagectomy* ; Fasting ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms ; Humans ; Incidence ; Length of Stay ; Magnesium ; Male ; Malnutrition ; Nutritional Status ; Parenteral Nutrition* ; Phlebitis ; Prealbumin

Myoepitheliomas are well-established to occur in the salivary glands, but they have also been described in the breast, upper aerodigestive tract, skin, and soft tissues. We report here on a unique case of primary myoepithelioma that occurred in the right testis of a 28-year-old man. The tumor was entirely confined to the testis and it was clearly separated from the epididymis. Histopathology revealed mixed architectural patterns in which the reticular areas merged into the chondromyxoid stroma. The tumor cells, which were focally immunoreactive to pancytokeratin and S-100 protein, were round to ovoid and spindly arranged in cords, strands, and fascicles. They showed mild nuclear pleomorphism, sparse mitotic figures and a low Ki-67 proliferative index. There was no ductal differentiation in the tumor. To the best of our knowledge, there has been only one case report of a primary testicular myoepithelioma in the English medical literature.
Adult ; Breast ; Epididymis ; Humans ; Male ; Myoepithelioma ; S100 Proteins ; Salivary Glands ; Skin ; Testis

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to provide a basis for non-humidified low flow oxygen by nasal cannula and to provide a guide for consistent care in nursing practice. METHODS: A methodological study on the development of guidelines with experts' opinions on collected items, framing PICO questions, evaluating and synthesizing texts which were searched with the key words (low flow oxygen, nasal cannula, humidification of oxygen, guideline) from web search engines. RESULTS: Of the 45 researched texts on the web, 9 texts relevant to the theme were synthesized and evaluated. All patients with humidified or non-humidified oxygen therapy reported that they had no discomfort. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that there are no tangible grounds for patients' perceived differences between the humidified and non-humidified oxygen under 4L/min supplied by nasal cannula. with oxygen. Therefore, non-humidification oxygen therapy is strongly advised when suppling under 4L/min oxygen by nasal cannula (recommended grade A).
Catheters ; Humans ; Oxygen

PURPOSE: To analyze the result of a repeat discectomy for ipsilateral recurrent lumbar disc herniation and to investigate the potential factors that influenced the outcomes for this surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-nine patients, who underwent reoperation after lumbar discectomy with a minimum follow-up period of 2 years, were reviewed. The surgical outcome was assessed using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and Macnab classification, and the recovery rate was calculated in accordance with VAS. A statistical analysis was carried out by SPSS to evaluate the possible factors that may have influenced the outcomes of the reoperation. RESULTS: The rate of reoperation after lumbar disc surgery due to the recurrent disc herniation was 6.0% (59/983 cases). The average recovery rate of VAS from the 1st operation was approximately 77%, and from the 2nd operation was 71%. According to the Macnab criteria, the results were “excellent” or “good” in 96% of cases. Statistical analysis revealed that there was no difference of the average recovery rate (p<0.05). There is no additional instability after repeat discectomy. Factors, such as smoking, precipitating traumatic events, and diabetes mellitus did not have much influence on the average recovery rate after repeat discectomy for ipsilateral recurrent lumbar disc herniation. CONCLUSION: The outcomes of repeat discectomy were satisfactory. Moreover, factors, smoking, trauma history and diabetic mellitus, only had a minor impact on the outcomes of a repeat discectomy.
Classification ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Diskectomy* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Reoperation ; Smoke ; Smoking

Mental health is one of the most important issues for disaster survivors, and many studies have reported higher rates of mental health problems after disasters. Because Japan has experienced frequent earthquakes, tsunami, typhoons, and volcanoes, mental health problems have been a matter of great concern after disasters in Japan. To serve the psychiatric services after the Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake, 'Hyogo institute for traumatic stress' was established. And when the disaster caused by the great east Japan earthquake and tsunami occurred, 'National information center of disaster mental health' and 'Disaster psychiatric assistance team' had the important role of reducing mental health problems.
Cyclonic Storms ; Disasters* ; Earthquakes ; Humans ; Information Centers ; Japan* ; Mental Health* ; Survivors ; Trauma Centers ; Tsunamis